Prediction of the Epidemic Peak of Covid19 in Egypt, 2020

El Desouky, E. D.

Objectives: Since December 2019 a pandemic of new novel coronavirus has started from Wuhan, China, in Egypt, the first case reported on February 14, 2020. In this study we aimed to predict the time of possible peak and simulate the changes could be happen by the social behavior of Egyptians during Ramadan (the holy month). Methods: SIR and SEIR compartmental models were used to predict the peak time. We simulated different expected scenarios based to examine their effects on the peak timing. Results: We found that the peak most likely to be in middle of June 2020. Simulating different transmission rate probability and R0 the earliest peak could to be in the May 20 and latest one could be in 18 July. The peak shifted much earlier to 11th April 2020 without lockdown and other mitigation strategies. Conclusion: Social behaviors of citizens during the holy month will dramatically affect the peak timing. Mitigations strategies and other lockdown measure helped to delay the expected peak. Keywords: COVID-19; compartmental models; Epidemic peak; Egypt